No Additional Benefit Found for Personalized Intervention to Promote Regular Mammography Screening

No Additional Benefit Found for Personalized Intervention to Promote Regular Mammography Screening

No Additional Benefit Found for Personalized Intervention to Promote
Regular Mammography Screening

Two different interventions did not significantly increase regular
mammography screening in a large randomized study.

Behavioral interventions, such as personalized mailings, have been
reported to increase one-time cancer screening. However, few studies have
examined the impact of behavioral interventions on regular or on-going
participation in screening exams.

Sally Vernon, Ph.D., of the University of Texas School of Public Health in
Houston and colleagues assigned 5,500 female veterans to one of three
interventions designed to encourage annual mammograms - a baseline survey
plus a targeted mailing, a baseline survey plus a targeted mailing that
was tailored to individual participants, or the baseline survey alone. The
investigators then looked to see how many women in each group had
completed two mammograms as recommended during the three-year follow-up
period.

Neither the targeted mailing nor the targeted and tailored mailing was
associated with a statistically significant increase in the percentage of
women who had regular mammograms compared to the survey-only group.

Noting that two other trials have recently reported similar findings, the
authors write, "Collectively, these findings and ours provide little
support for an additional benefit of using tailored interventions, either
mailed or by telephone, to increase regular mammography screening."

In an accompanying paper by Deborah del Junco, Ph.D., of the University of
Texas Health Science Center in Houston and colleagues, the researchers
report that the results of the intervention trial are likely to be
internally valid and applicable to the larger population. They assessed
the validity of the trial by including two additional control groups in
the study design and by comparing the characteristics of study
participants with those of nonparticipants. The investigators found that
the baseline survey by itself did not influence subsequent mammography
screening rates. In addition, they found that mammography rates actually
decreased in the final study year in the veteran population.

"Similar rates of mammography coverage and compliance in the US female
population and the decline reported for the US female population between
2000 and 2005 lend additional support to the generalizability of our
results," the authors write.

News From The Journal Of The National Cancer Institute
Date: 27 Feb 2008